Secret 27: The Entrepreneurial Approach to Management

Excerpted from Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 2:
A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Being a Better Leader.

The Entrepreneurial Approach is about applying the same sort of creative, compelling, fun, energy-building approaches in our leadership that we long ago started to apply in our merchandising and sales work Instead of getting all serious and bureaucratic, it brings fun and positive energy into employee management. If, as per Servant Leadership, the staff are our customers, this approach is all about selling them on what we believe is best. If our work with Stewardship says that we want to encourage people to make conscious choices to commit to what we’re doing, the Entrepreneurial Approach is guaranteed to raise the odds of that happening. And if everyone’s a leader, then anyone here can kick the approach into action. It works far better than old-school stuff that orders staff to behave.